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like someone. We’re a homogenized race.”
    “You don’t believe that, and neither do I. We both have egos that tell us we’re unique.” His smile disappeared. “And someone has put you on a list that definitely makes you stand out.”
    “Not that you didn’t stand out before.” Jock stood in the kitchen doorway with a huge cup in his hand. “I found a souvenir mug on one of the top shelves.” He came toward her. “Much better than those little cups.” He gave her the mug and took the other cup awayfrom her. “Now drink that down. I’m sure MacDuff has told you enough to make you need another jolt of caffeine.”
    “You should have come to me, told me.” She shook her head. “MacDuff says there’s no mistake, but I still can’t see any connection that would make sense.”
    “There was a connection. No one mentioned your name, but I saw that newspaper article in the possession of at least three of the members.” He made a face. “It was pretty frustrating not to be able to learn more. They welcomed me on a very tentative basis. I wasn’t privy to any crucial information, and they watched me as much as I watched them. But they definitely thought I might be useful to them at some point.” His lips lifted in a sardonic smile. “Why not?”
    “Did you know anything about Folard, the man you killed?”
    “No, he was never in Rome. But if he was sent after you, then he was probably one of the core eight.”
    “What?”
    He shrugged. “I gathered that there are eight who are considered the core or most important members. They’re the only ones that Millet trusts and allows to travel with him.”
    “How many people belong to this Sang Noir?”
    Jock hesitated. “I’m not sure. The Sang Noir has twenty or thirty members in Rome. But I understand he gets phone calls from all over the world. Of course, they could be clients.”
    “But you don’t believe that?” MacDuff asked.
    “I don’t know what I believe. I was only concentrating on getting information that pertained to Jane.” He paused. “I didn’t give a damn about anything else. Let Venable track down all Millet’s dirty business. If I’d run across something about this deal Venable’s so concerned about, I’d have told him, but it wasn’t a priority. I knew he was using me.” He added, “In fact, he suggested rather bluntly that he wouldn’t be opposed if I took out Millet.”
    “Son of a bitch,” MacDuff said.
    “It wasn’t totally unreasonable. It could have solved Venable’s problem. I might have done it, but I couldn’t be sure that would have stopped the plans for killing Jane from going forward. I decided to let him live.”
    The words were said with an offhand coolness, and Jane felt a ripple of shock. She knew that Jock still wrestled with the numbness that had been instilled in him during that period when he had been brainwashed. Yet the Jock that he showed to her was so gentle and caring that those glimpses always caught her off guard. But Jock wouldn’t have been put in the position of making decisions like that if he hadn’t been trying to help her.
    “Tell me about Millet and this Sang Noir,” she said. “They have to be crazy, or they couldn’t have done what they did tonight. But I’m lost; there has to be something that I can grab and hold on to.”
    “I’ll tell you what I know,” Jock said. “Most of it is what Venable filled me in on when he tapped me for his little job. As I said, the group is very tight and they don’t talk much. Millet supposedly grew up in Syria. His mother was Syrian and his father, Jim Millet, an American from Miami. His father was a smuggler and had a record a mile long before he settled in a village in Syria. He was under suspicion for beating his first wife to death before he left Miami. His second wife disappeared when Jack Millet was sixteen.”
    “Disappeared?”
    “Her son and husband claimed she had run away. There wasn’t much of an investigation. In spite of